The holiday season is a time of reflection. This month our Tucson Hispanic Chamber celebrated our accomplishments for the year at our State of the Chamber luncheon. The event allowed us an opportunity to celebrate 2014 – and to thank our members, volunteers and corporate partners!
Our Tucson Hispanic Chamber and our affiliate chambers serve the business community in the bilingual, bicultural region of the Arizona Sonora border.
This has been another incredible year for our chamber and our members. For many of our members, it has been a tough recovery from the economic recession. At the THCC, we have been listening carefully and creating programs and services focused on helping our member’s grow their businesses.
In 2013, our chamber celebrated together when we exceeded 1000 member businesses. That same year, we were recognized as the largest Latino business organization in the state of Arizona and one of the largest chambers of commerce in our region. The Tucson Hispanic Chamber was also recognized as the Large Hispanic Chamber of the Year for the United States by the USHCC. Each of these achievements could not have been accomplished without our incredible members and their passion for the mission of our chamber.
Today our chamber has 1150 members businesses of which a majority are small businesses reflecting our community. Some of our chamber members join for our networking opportunities, others to reach the fast growing Hispanic market and still others to explore international trade opportunities. The Tucson Hispanic Chamber assists our members in reaching the fast growing, Hispanic community and the nation’s fastest growing business sector– the over 70,000 Hispanic owned businesses in Arizona.
In 2014, we continued to push our member offerings to new levels. We embraced our mission to assist businesses throughout Southern Arizona and Northern Mexico and launched the Sierra Vista Hispanic Chamber, the Ambos Nogales Hispanic Chamber and the Douglas Hispanic Chamber. All three chambers are affiliate chambers of our THCC and have their own Advisory Councils to best represent the communities. Many Tucson businesses are interested in expanding to the Southern Arizona market, while businesses in our new affiliate chambers are interested in connections in the Tucson market. It’s a win-win for all of our members and allows businesses to join one chamber and to be members of all four for one price!
We had a few other exciting additions this past year! We announced a partnership in September with CPLC on the Prestamos lending program to work with small businesses who are more credit challenged on loans of $2000 – $250,000.
We also announced in September that our chamber had been awarded an SBA Grant for $250,000 a year for three years to assist businesses in Arizona with business consulting and education workshops. The program will be focusing on businesses in Cochise and Santa Cruz counties in the Spring.
The Tucson Hispanic Chamber has been working for many years to build bridges between our Arizona and Mexican businesses. Over the last several years, we have hosted events, trade mission trips and signed economic development agreements with many of the Mexican chambers in Sonora. Our vision is to be THE destination for businesses in our region for assistance in international trade. We’ve had many members travel with us to Sonora for our quarterly Trade Mission Trips. Our next trip is to Guaymas to visit the Port of Guaymas, tour manufacturing sites and meet with business leaders Jan 28th – 30th. The trip is open to the public. More information is available at www.TucsonHispanicChamber.org.
Highlighting Hispanic leadership in our community is important to our chamber. These leaders serve as role models to our youth and an inspiration to all of us to get engaged in our community. To encourage leadership, the chamber launched our Hispanic Leadership Institute four years ago in partnership with Valle del Sol to educate rising leaders on issues important to our region and their impact on the latino community. Consider applying for the program which begins in February or referring a friend. We also assist our region’s non-profit organizations in identifying Hispanic leaders to serve on Boards and Committees.
Lastly, the Tucson Hispanic Chamber engaged in many conversations over the last year to advocate on behalf of our businesses. We hosted conversations with Senator McCain, Congressman Gosar, Congressman Grijalva, County Administrator Chuck Huckelberry, Mayor Rothschild and others. We continued to lobby in DC on federal immigration reform, support for Davis Monthan AFB and Fort Huachuca and support for our University of Arizona among other priorities. The State Legislative Session begins in just a few weeks. Our chamber will be even more active this year working on legislation and protecting our Southern Arizona business interests.
Our chamber hosts lively bi-weekly Business Advocacy committee meetings that are open to any member where we work on local, state and federal issues that impact our businesses. Recently we tackled road maintenance needs in Pima County and our support of annexation in the City of Tucson. For the last four years, our chamber has hosted a Southern Arizona Candidate Academy in the Spring to encourage our community to run for office and engage in campaigns. In addition, we continue to promote the importance of voting via our VotaAZ.org website which had over 60,000 clicks during this recent election cycle.
Our vision for our Hispanic Chamber is continued growth of our programs and services throughout Southern Arizona and Northern Mexico. We truly believe that we are one region – and that we are economically interdependent on one another.
We have many exciting plans for our chamber in 2015 that will help you grow your business. Join the Hispanic Chamber today! Learn more at www.TucsonHispanicChamber.org or call us at 520-620-0005.
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